Giveaway Week 2024 – iKOOLCORE R2 Core i3-N300 mini PC and quad 2.5GbE router

iKOOLCORE R2 Proxmox review

Let’s end CNX Software’s Giveaway Week 2024 with a bang! The last prize is an iKOOLCORE R2 mini PC and router powered by an Intel Core i3-N300 Alder Lake-N CPU, equipped with 8GB RAM and a 512GB NVMe SSD, and featuring four 2.5GbE ports. The tiny PC also comes with HDMI and USB-C ports for dual 4K video output, an M.2 E-Key socket to install a wireless module for WiFi and Bluetooth, two USB 3.1 Gen 2 (5 Gbps) Type-A ports, a USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) Type-C port with DisplayPort Alt. mode, and a not-so-useful USB-C audio port using Realtek ALC987 codec. My review of the iKOOLCORE R2 last year was a learning experience as it was the first time I used Proxmox VE and pfSense, and since I wanted to use the system both as a mini PC running Ubuntu 22.04 desktop and a router/firewall running pfSense […]

Maxtang T0-FP750 review – Part 3: An AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS mini PC tested with Ubuntu 24.04

Maxtang T0-FP750 mini PC Ubuntu 24.04 review

We’ve already checked out the hardware of the Maxtang T0-FP750 mini PC with an unboxing and a teardown in the first part of the review, before thoroughly testing the AMD Ryzen 7 8845HS mini PC in Windows 11 Pro. The time has now come to report our experience with Ubuntu 24.04, and more exactly Ubuntu 24.04.1 “dot” release, with the Maxtang T0-FT750 mini PC in the final part of the review. This will include a software overview, feature tests, benchmarks, storage and USB performance evaluation, 2.5Gbps Ethernet and WiFi 6 network performance tests, a stress test to check for thermal and/or power throttling, and fan noise and power consumption measurements. We will also compare the results of the Maxtang T0-FP750 mini PC in Ubuntu 24.04 against the ones for the earlier Maxtang MTN-FP750 mini PC using AMD Ryzen 7 7735HS CPU which we tested with Ubuntu 22.04. Ubuntu 24.04 system […]

Portwell PJAI-100-ON rugged Edge AI embedded system features NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano for industrial quality control

Portwell PJAI-100-ON

Portwell has launched the PJAI-100-ON, a rugged and compact embedded system powered by the NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano SOM and designed for demanding industrial environments. It operates reliably across a wide temperature range of -20°C to 60°C with a fanless, quiet design that requires minimal maintenance. Equipped with dual Gigabit Ethernet LAN ports and M.2 slots for wireless connectivity, the PJAI-100-ON is tailored for Edge AI applications. This system enhances quality control in manufacturing by using advanced optical inspection technology to detect defects, improving quality assurance and reducing production errors. Previously, we covered other Jetson Orin Nano embedded systems, including Aetina’s AIE-KO21, AIE-KO31, AIE-KN31, and AIE-KN41 and DFI X6-MTH-ORN fanless Edge AI Box computer, as well as Portwell’s WEBS-21J0-ASL another rugged embedded system built around an Intel Atom x7000RE Amstom Lake Nano-ITX motherboard and equipped with an Hailo-8 AI accelerator. Portwell PJAI-100-ON specifications: SoM – NVIDIA Jetson Orin Nano CPU […]

iKOOLCORE R2 Max 10GbE mini PC review – Part 1: Unboxing, teardown, and first boot

Dual 10GbE Dual 2.5GbE Intel N100 mini PC soft router

iKOOLCORE R2 Max is an Alder Lake-N mini PC, server, and soft router equipped with two 10GbE and two 2.5GbE ports and offered with either an Intel Processor N100 quad-core CPU, or a more powerful Intel Core i3-N305 octa-core processor. When iKOOLCORE offered me an R2 Max sample for review, I explained I did not own any 10GbE networking gear. So the company decided to send me two samples for testing 10 Gbps Ethernet networking: a fanless Intel N100 model and an actively-cooled Core i3-N305 model. Since we’ve already gone through the specifications in the first article, I’ll start the iKOOLCORE R2 Max review with an unboxing, a teardown, and a first boot. In the second part of the review, I’ll use Proxmox, OpenWrt, Ubuntu, and/or other operating systems to test the devices using one as a DUT (Device Under Test) and the other as a 10GbE server. iKOOLCORE R2 […]

Giveaway Week 2024 – Mixtile Core 3588E development kit with RK3588 SoM

Mixtile Core 3588E Ubuntu 22.04 review

Day 4 of Giveaway Week 2024 will be for a development kit comprised of the Mixtile Core 3588E SoM based on Rockchip RK3588 octa-core Cortex-A76/A55 SoC and a Leetop A206 carrier board compatible with NVIDIA Jetson SO-DIMM modules. This development kit is mostly useful to evaluate the Mixtile Core 3588E system-on-module, but it can be used just like any Rockchip RK3588 SBC with the company providing a Ubuntu 22.04 Desktop image for the board. Since it relies on the same edge connector as the NVIDIA Jetson TX2 NX module, the Core 3588E module can also be connected to other compatible carrier boards. I reviewed the Mixtile Core 3588E development kit last December running Ubuntu 22.04. At the time, I found the Mixtile Core 3588E system-on-module performs well with the pre-loaded Ubuntu 22.04 image with a similar performance as on other Rockchip RK3588 hardware platforms. 3D graphics acceleration was working with […]

Andes QiLai quad-core AX45MP RISC-V SoC with NX27V vector processor powers micro-ATX Voyager Development Platform

Andes Voyager Development Platform

Andes’ Voyager Development Platform is a micro-ATX motherboard based on the company’s QiLai SoC with four AX45MP 64-bit RISC-V cores and an NX27V vector processor optimized for AI workloads. The Voyager board supports up to 16GB of DDR4 via a UDIMM socket, features 16Mbit SPI Flash for boot code and an SD card socket, includes three PCIe Gen4 slots to connect external devices such as GPU card and SSD,  as well as a JTAG debugger and USB to UART bridge for debugging during Linux software development. Andes QiLai RISC-V AI SoC Before looking at the board itself, let’s check the Andes QiLai SoC specifications: CPU cores Andes AX45MP-4C cluster 4x RV64GC 8-stage superscalar processors clocked at 1.6 GHz (worse) / 2.1 GHz (typ.) Support of MESI cache coherence protocol with Coherence Manager 32KB L1 Instruction and Date cache 2MB L2 cache I/O Coherence Port (IOCP) – Synchronous AXI4 (256 bits […]

Giveaway Week 2024 – Jupiter RISC-V mini-ITX motherboard

Bianbu OS setup wizard

The 11th edition of CNX Software giveaway week is underway! We have seven items to give away this time around: six review samples I will send myself and one from a company offering one of its cellular IoT development kits… The contest is open worldwide, and CNX Software Thailand is also joining the fun with four additional items available to people with an address in Thailand. The first prize of this year’s giveaway is Shenzhen MILK-V Technology’s Jupiter RISC-V mini-ITX motherboard powered by a 1.8 GHz SpacemiT K1/M1 octa-core processor, equipped with 16GB LPDDR4x, and various interfaces and features such as M.2 PCIe 2.0 x2 socket for an NVMe SSD, a 4K-capable HDMI video output, two gigabit Ethernet ports, WiFi 6 and Bluetooth 5 module, and more. I reviewed the Jupiter mini-ITX motherboard with Ubuntu-based Bianbu OS and an Auriga 6-Bay NAS mini-ITX chassis last August and the results were […]

UP Squared Pro 710H SBC combines Alder Lake-N CPU with Hailo-8 AI accelerator for the machine vision market

UP Squared Pro 710H

AAEON UP Squared Pro 710H is a 4×4-inch SBC and developer board designed for machine vision applications with an Intel Processor N97 or Core i3-N305 Alder Lake-N CPU and a 26 TOPS Hailo-8 Edge AI processor. The single board computer supports up to two MIPI CSI cameras via a 61-pin connector and offers expansion capabilities through a 40-pin Raspberry Pi-compatible header and three M.2 sockets for 5G, Wi-Fi, and NVMe storage support. While it’s only designed to operate in the 0 to 60°C temperature range, it does have industrial features such as 12V to 36V DC input and two RS-232/422/485 connectors. UP Squared Pro 710H specifications: Alder Lake N-series SoC (one or the other) Intel Processor N97 quad-core processor up to 3.6 GHz with 6MB cache, 24EU Intel UHD Graphics Gen 12 @ 1.2 GHz; TDP: 12W Intel Core i3-N305 octa-core processor up to 3.8 GHz with 6MB cache, 32EU Intel […]

UP 7000 x86 SBC